SKF First-quarter report 2015

2015 April 17, 08:00
CEST

Alrik Danielson, President and CEO:”Demand was in line with our expectations, with reported sales growth in local currencies of 1,4%. All three business areas showed an increase in sales in local currencies. Geographically, Asia continued to show a good growth followed by Europe and Latin America which were relatively unchanged while in North America the business slowed somewhat due to lower activity in some of our key industries. Cash flow from operations was strong, even though we built some working capital in the quarter due to seasonality.There has been a high focus on implementing the already announced restructuringprogramme and I am pleased to see the good progress so far, around 40%.The high focus on innovations is continuing throughout the organization and we have launched several new innovations to help our customers improve their productivity and reduce energy usage. For example, we introduced a new generalized bearing life concept enabling customers to much better account for real-life conditions when calculating SKF bearing life in their machines.Looking forward, there is continued uncertainty from a macro perspective. Sequentially and year on year we expect the demand to be relatively unchanged for the Group.I am also pleased to welcome a new Senior Vice President and CFO for the Group, Christian Johansson.’’

Key figures

Q1 2015

Q1 2014

Net sales, SEKm

19 454

16 734

Operating profit, SEKm

1 721

2 024

Operating margin, %

8.8

12.1

One-time items (- costs, + income)

-655

117

Operating profit excluding one-time items, SEKm

2 376

1 907

Operating margin excl. one-time items %

12.2

11.4

Profit before taxes, SEKm

1 592

1 787

Net profit, SEKm

1 165

1 275

Basic earnings per share, SEK

2.46

2.72

One-time items in Q1 2015 include SEK -535 million for the ongoing cost-reduction programme, and the remainder relates to write-offs of assets.

31 March 2015

31 December 2014

31 March 2014

Net working capital, % of annual sales

32.1

30.6

32.8

ROCE for the 12-month period, %

12.6

13.9

8.4

Net debt/equity, %

122.2

126.6

117.6

Net debt/EBITDA, %

3.2

3.0

4.2

Net sales change y-o-y, %:

Organic

Structure

Currency

Total

Q1 2015

1.4

0

14.9

16.3

Organic sales change in local currencies, per region y-o-y, %:

Europe

NorthAmerica

Latin America

Asia

Middle East & Africa

Q1 2015

1.0

-2.4

0.4

5.6

14.2

Outlook for the second quarter of 2015

Demand compared to the second quarter 2014
The demand for SKF’s products and services is expected to be relatively unchanged for the Group and for Europe. For Asia it is expected to be higher and for North and Latin America slightly lower. Per business area, for both Industrial Market and Automotive Market it is expected to be relatively unchanged, and for Specialty Business to be slightly higher.

Demand compared to the first quarter 2015
The demand for SKF’s products and services is expected to be relatively unchanged for the Group, Europe and North America. For Asia it is expected to be higher and for Latin America slightly lower. Per business area, for both Industrial Market and Automotive Market it is expected to be relatively unchanged, and for Specialty Business to be slightly higher.

Manufacturing
Manufacturing is expected to be relatively unchanged year over year and compared to the first quarter.

AB SKF is required to disclose the information provided herein pursuant to the Securities Markets Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication at around 08.00 on 17 April 2015.

SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 15,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2014 were SEK 70 975 million and the number of employees was 48 593. www.skf.com